1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel and improved apparatus for coating seeds with gel, particularly which can produce a plurality of gel-coated seeds simlutaneously.
2. Related Art
Japanese Laid Open Gazette No. Hei 9-149,711, for example, discloses a well-known conventional apparatus for coating small seeds with gelling solution mixed together with nutrition, medicine and the like, wherein seeds are sucked to a plurality of sucking chips respectively, carried to the above portion of processing nozzles by the movement of the sucking nozzles and released into the respective nozzles. Each of the nozzles is previously fed therein with gelling solution so as to form a gel-membrane therein for receiving the released seed, thereby coating the seed with the gelling solution. In the same apparatus, the gel-coated seeds are dropped into hardening solution in a tank so as to be conveyed therein by the movement of paddles while the gel-coat thereof being hardened, and then are dropped into water or other washing liquid in another tank so as to be conveyed therein by a screw-typed conveyor while the hardening solution stuck to the outer surface thereof being washed out.
The above-said conventional seed coating apparatus with gel has included some problems as follows:
The apparatus has been able to processes only small seeds. Large seeds have been processed by a different apparatus.
The sucking chips have been moved by actuators consisting of a horizontally moving cylinder and a vertically moving cylinder, so that there has been such a fear that the seeds carried by the sucking chips fall down by an inertial force at the intermediate of its carriage course where the carrying direction is changed. Additionally, the seed carrying means having such cylinders is complicated.
The flow of gelling solution fed into each nozzle has been substantially horizontally oneway, so that when it was excessively pressurized, there has been a fear of deviation of the gel-membrane from its determined portion by the pressure. It has also caused the deviation of the gel-coated seed dropped between the nozzle and the hardening unit from its determined arrival portion in the hardening unit, so that the dropped gel-coated seed has hit its soft gel-coat against the paddle. On seeding, the resultant unevenly gel-coated seeds are sent through a hose or a seeding machine while rubbing against one another, thereby causing the inner seeds to be removed from the gel-coats or to be injured.
The conveyors of the hardening unit and the washing unit has been mechanically different from each other as the above mentioned, thereby expensively increasing the kinds of parts. Additionally, the paddle of the hardening unit has been made of a plate bored by a plurality of slits for allowance of the hardening solution to pass therethrough, which has been laterally united at the upper and lower ends thereof in perpendicular to its conveyance direction, thereby causing its resistance against the hardening solution so as to push out the hardening solution together with the gel-coated seeds through a seed discharge hole of the hardening unit.